Doctor who pushed for Oregon's Death With Dignity Act intends to exercise the right

Yet he puzzled over his inability to connect with patients "well enough for me to be satisfied and for many of them to be satisfied." He took a year of study at the Medical College of South Carolina. There, a friend who was a psychologist listened to Goodwin wonder aloud how one patient would take advice to quit smoking, but another wouldn't.

The friend simply asked why Goodwin wanted patients to stop smoking.

A ridiculous question, it would seem. "I thought to myself, oh, that silly idiot."

Then with a shock he realized that his friend was pointing out the power imbalance between doctor and patient, which led Goodwin to question his motives in practicing medicine, which he says made him a better doctor.

"Why am I lording it over them? What am I doing to them when I talk to them about stopping smoking?" Goodwin says. "That is what he wanted me to think about." His eyes have tears. "It was touching, really."

He learned more from his mistakes than from his triumphs. "But it took me a long time to recognize my failures."

He remembers a patient in the rural South African burg of Queenstown, a woman who had been in a car accident that broke her legs. "I pinned and used plates in both fractures, and neither of them got infected, which was an absolute miracle. She recovered, and she was eternally grateful to me."

But larger to Goodwin than her gratitude was his mistake: "One leg, one foot was straight ahead, the other was off at an angle of about 30 degrees because I had pinned and plated that leg in the wrong orientation. She could never forget what I had done for her. When I looked at her legs, all I could say to myself was, 'Good gracious, Peter, is that the best you could do?'"

"The fact that patients love you doesn't mean everything."

Goodwin's wife of 50 years, Erica, was "my adviser, my guide," a sensitive listener, "which is why our children grew up so well. It was lovely to be together, but losing her was a disaster."

That great heartbreak came in October 2008. His wife suffered a massive stroke. Goodwin confronted a choice.

"She had said that she never wanted to die as an invalid. So I called her doctor, and he came to the house. I said, look she's really stroked out. Let's wait and see until the morning," he says.

"That was, of course, really in a sense, going against all these sort of information that I knew was appropriate for a stroke patient. But she died the following morning, early. And I have no regrets about that. ... I say good night to her every night."

View full sizeRoss William Hamilton/The OregonianPhysician Peter Goodwin sat through and testified at countless hearings like this one in March 1997 and public meetings on what was called Measure 16, the Death With Dignity Act. The law was enacted in November 1997. Earlier in the campaign, Goodwin had said that if he were ever needed to exercise the right granted under the law, he would have no hesitation.

In the 2011 documentary "How to Die in Oregon" about the Death With Dignity Act, patients said they would know when the time would come to exercise their right. Goodwin can already see the window closing; he's fallen a few times, and while he hasn't been injured, he knows that he will not be as lucky as time passes.

When his doctors gave him less than six months, he obtained the drugs to end his life. "It's given me a sense of relief." The law requires a patient to give himself the drug, so Goodwin's hands have never been more important to him.

He can still raise his right arm to shoulder level, but the right hand "is almost totally, ridiculously useless." His left hand retains some function, although "sometimes it takes two rotations of my Sonicare toothbrush to get all my teeth." The struggle to do up his pants again can take four or five minutes.

"I use four-letter words quite freely, and at times, I giggle because sometimes it's really laughable what happens. Even when I knock things to the floor, I sort of think to myself: I did that twice before, but the last two times, I did it a lot better."

He glances out the window, at shining Mount Hood. He has spent many a dusk watching the light play across the mountain.

"I may be the first person to have come up with this observation, but I don't think so because I think other people have been unfortunate in the past, and so I think: Life is unfair. There you are."

To treat that condition, the doctor offers his prescription:

"Be fulfilled. In other words, be happy with yourself. Recognize achievements and be proud of them then go on to further achievements. Know what you want to do and do it. Be happy. Know good friends. Be in love."